PrashantNews
India’s ace shuttler Lakshya Sen on Friday stormed into the men’s singles badminton semi finals in Paris Olympics by overpowering Chou Tien-Chen of Taipei on Friday.
In the semi-final, Sen will meet the world no 2 Viktor Axelsen of Denmark on Sunday. Axelsen is a two-time World Champion also and the reigning Olympic Champion.
Sen, who was born in Almora in Uttarakhand, is the first male shuttler from India to enter semi-finals of an Olympics.
In a hard-fought match, Sen won 19-21, 21-15, 21-12 in less than one and a half hour amid a boisterous crowd that cheered for him most of the time. “Jeetega-jeetega, India Jeetega (India will win),” remained the main slogan in the stadium.
In the first set, Chou took lead and remained in command in most of the time. He played some exceptional shots giving no time to Sen to return. Some long rallies were also witnessed in the match where both the players tried to outsmart each other.
But in the second and the third decisive sets, Sen took the control giving no time to Chao to recover. Chao’s coach, who was dancing initially, kept quiet in the tense moments as in the third set it appeared that Sen has completely taken the control of the game.
On the other hand, both Vimal Kumar and Prakash Padukone remained cool and composed throughout the match.
Some people in the hill state congratulated each other after Sen won the quarter-finals match. “I am proud that our boy has entered the semi-finals in Olympics,” said Shailendra Rawat of Dehradun.